Out of the running

I didn’t expect to be this sad or disappointed, but I am. A few weeks ago I noticed, despite the fact that my training runs were on pace and going well, that the groin injury that happened when I was stupid enough to swim (once) while pregnant with Isaac, was flaring up again. It has come up briefly before but has always gone away. This time, even though running didn’t hurt, I felt the pain after I stopped and sometimes throughout the day. After an easy 6 miles on Monday I was alarmed that both sides were now hurting. They hurt when I sat, put on my shoes, walked around… so I visited a physical therapist the next morning. Her thought was that it was a small tear or a strain on the tendon or ligament. I know very well from A&P that since both tendons and ligaments aren’t very vascular they can take a while to heal. She could feel the inflamed area and recommended giving myself a week of training while stretching and icing three times today.

After two days of cross training I went to do my 7 mile tempo run today and only made it through 2 miles. The pain that used to go away within a quarter mile was there the entire time, every time I picked up my leg. If the marathon were this weekend, maybe I would push through. As it is, I don’t think that I can get through 4 more weeks of quality training and a marathon without reaping some long term consequences. I guess overall it’s better to throw away 10.5 weeks of good training rather than having to take six months off for not listening to my body. But giving up at this point… it’s so much harder and sadder than I thought it would be.

I know I’m not the first person to be sidelined because of an injury. Just googling “groin pain” brought up plenty of other injured runners unsure as to whether or not they would make it to their race, but that doesn’t make it any less disappointing.

On the bright side, at least I never registered for the run. Despite that, I am really really sad about the whole thing.

Oh dear, that must be hard. I still haven’t been in a single race, despite running for over 12 years. the first race I signed up for several years ago ( a 14km) I got a severe UTI and had to can it… enrolled in my (hopefully) first race in 8 weeks and doing the FIRST training as I saw it was working well for you.

One thing that was interesting though, my sister-in-law competed in the race and despite having to only cross train for weeks beforehand ( spincycling instead of running due to a knee injury) did really well… I wonder if it will still come good? Of course, you know your body and whether you should close the door…

I was just thinking about you and wondering how your injury was feeling. Those damn groin injuries! I pulled one 10 years ago and it still flares up on me now and again. You are right to listen to your body. But dangit–I’m sure you are super disappointed and rightly so. So sorry!